So this is top 5 in all time gold count, then ordered by per capita.
Many countries have better per capita gold medals, but don’t make this list.
Per capita is not the best measurement of this because there are only so many events, and because there are per-country limits on how many competitors or teams you can send per event.
No way this is the top countries per capita. I bet the Bahamas and Finland are very high. I’d think Jamaica has to be on the list.
No way the US is anywhere near making the top 5.
Being cumulative favors those who have been participating in the Olympics longer. If a country did not start participating in the Olympics before some year, say, 1980, they won’t have any medals from before 1980. They should only be compared for the years in which they actually compete, not compare them for all of the years they did not compete. Countries like the United Kingdom, for example, have been competing in all of the modern Olympics, so they should have a higher cumulative collection of gold medals per capita than the countries that have not done that.
WTF is cumulative golds per Capita? Is it cumulative gold per cumulative capita (which is hard to obtain)? Cumulative golds per present-day population? (Which tells you virtually nothing)
You have Russia and the Soviet Union mixed up. The Soviet Union was roughly twice the population of Russia alone.
Why does Russia appear around the 50s-80s? It wasn’t even independent back then.
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Pretty sure Jamaica and Norway have much better numbers.
Considering one person can win 7-8 golds in swimming but a team of 12 basketball players only wins 1 gold combined, I never saw a lot of value in the medal count.
So the Berlin Wall was holding Germany back from gold medals?
![[OC] Olympic Golds Per Capita of Top Countries](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/97jo2qhdhzsf1-1920x1024.png)
12 comments
So this is top 5 in all time gold count, then ordered by per capita.
Many countries have better per capita gold medals, but don’t make this list.
Per capita is not the best measurement of this because there are only so many events, and because there are per-country limits on how many competitors or teams you can send per event.
No way this is the top countries per capita. I bet the Bahamas and Finland are very high. I’d think Jamaica has to be on the list.
No way the US is anywhere near making the top 5.
Being cumulative favors those who have been participating in the Olympics longer. If a country did not start participating in the Olympics before some year, say, 1980, they won’t have any medals from before 1980. They should only be compared for the years in which they actually compete, not compare them for all of the years they did not compete. Countries like the United Kingdom, for example, have been competing in all of the modern Olympics, so they should have a higher cumulative collection of gold medals per capita than the countries that have not done that.
WTF is cumulative golds per Capita? Is it cumulative gold per cumulative capita (which is hard to obtain)? Cumulative golds per present-day population? (Which tells you virtually nothing)
You have Russia and the Soviet Union mixed up. The Soviet Union was roughly twice the population of Russia alone.
Why does Russia appear around the 50s-80s? It wasn’t even independent back then.
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Pretty sure Jamaica and Norway have much better numbers.
Considering one person can win 7-8 golds in swimming but a team of 12 basketball players only wins 1 gold combined, I never saw a lot of value in the medal count.
So the Berlin Wall was holding Germany back from gold medals?
Include Winter coward. Norway is coming for you.
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